this could energize the republicans in a state like massachusetts, for example, scott brown in his race against elizabeth warren, they're worried that the president's performance last night could hurt some of those vulnerable senate democrats. >> and that is of course the very same dynamic we were hearing from republicans 24, 48, 72 hours before the debate. would the guy at the top of the ticket be hurting the rest of us down ballot? look, there's a month left in this election. the president has two debates to recover, other ways to recover, out campaigning watch and see in the next week does campaign ad spending and content change in the next weeks? but the democrats have the jitters that the republicans had last week. a long way to go but the big thing last night some democrats thought with the strong first debate performance the president could all but put this away. that didn't happen and we have quite a horse race. >> we certainly do. we'll see what the polls in the next few days show. i expect there will be a bounce for mitt romney. john, thanks very much. jack cafferty has his ow